


How You Play the Game

by Melanie_Athene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melanie_Athene/pseuds/Melanie_Athene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How You Play the Game

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Waymeet's "A Lesson Learned Challenge" (September 2006)

I remember, back when I was a fauntling, how very much I wanted to be just like all the other lads. How I longed to fit in and take part in their rough and tumble play. But, despite having an appetite that at times rivaled Father's, I was woefully thin, all big eyes and spindly limbs, and Mother feared that my bones would be broken were a more solidly built hobbit ever to fall on me.

“You're meant for grander things,” she would soothe, whenever I wept at being forbidden from the fun. And in my heart I believed her. For she was the fairest and wisest of hobbits, the centre of my universe, and I knew she always wanted only the very best for me. But to a lad who felt forever doomed to view life from the sidelines, sometimes that consolation was not enough. I wanted to play. How I yearned for it with every fiber of my being! So I would steal away from our smial and hover on the edges of the playing field, hoping someone, someday, would choose me to be on their team. But no one ever did.

After Mother and Father died, for a long time I withdrew into myself. I lost weight I could ill afford to lose. I came to prefer the company of books over the company of hobbits. Lost in some tale of heroic adventure, I could forget the pain that reality offered. How ironic that my withdrawal led to the other lads finally taking notice of me. But not in the manner in which I had dreamed they would. Oh, no! I became a target of ridicule and cruel pranks. A pinch, a shove, a foot stuck out to trip me up... these were the tricks that plagued me as I made my way from day to endless day. I didn't mind the bruises, they were quick enough to fade. Likewise, skinned knees and elbows were soon mended. It was the unkind words that lingered... Not that I ever let anyone see me cry. I saved my tears for my pillow. I wept in silence, with a fist held to my mouth to stifle the sobs that shook me. 

How eagerly I accepted Bilbo's offer of a home. Hobbiton seemed worlds removed from the hustle and bustle of life at Brandy Hall. I slipped into the routine of Bilbo's life so quietly that sometimes he forgot I was even there. And that suited me just fine.

I think I might have continued to live my life quite happily in this artificial dreamland, had I not one day lifted my gaze from the text that I was reading and met the bright, curious eyes of our gardener's youngest lad.

Samwise Gamgee was a solidly built child to say the least: firmly muscled and plump in all the right places. His face glowed with good health, and he literally bounced with barely contained energy. For an instant, my mind flashed back to all the bullies that had made my childhood such a misery, and though I stood taller than Sam by several inches, and was both his elder and his future master, still I felt the urge to quickly make my way into the smial and hide myself away. But something stayed my flight. Perhaps it was the light of intelligence that sparkled in his green-hazel eyes. Perhaps it was the fact that he was as scruffy looking as I had been in my darkest days. Cuts and scrapes and bruises marred the chubby flesh of his legs and arms. It also very much looked as if the lad had rolled with the pigs in Farmer Maggot's sty. A goodly part of the mud could no doubt be accounted for by the large, muddy ball he held clutched to his breast. The same coloured soil encrusted his gently flexing toes.

He met my silent appraisal with a gap-toothed grin.

“We're a player short,” he announced with the air of a hobbit that clearly expected me to remedy the situation.

“I beg your pardon?” I said slowly.

“We're a player short,” he repeated patiently. “I thought that you might like to play. You're a tad older than the rest of us, but I reckon we can give you a fair game.”

“What?” I cleared my throat and tried again. “What game are you playing?”

“Football,” he laughed, holding up his grimy treasure.

“Oh.” I looked blankly at the ball. “Um... It's very kind of you to offer, Samwise, but I'm afraid that I don't know how to play.”

“It's easy enough, ” he coaxed, “ You just run and kick the ball. Please, sir. My team is counting on me to find someone to make up our numbers. All the older lads are out working in the fields, it being haying season, and two of our players are laid ill with a fever. If you don't help us out, then there won't be a game. Hobbiton will have to forfeit to Bywater.”

“And if my inexperience costs you the game?” 

Samwise shrugged carelessly. “Then we will have gone down trying. No shame in that. So what do you say, Mr. Frodo? Will you play?”

There was but one answer I could give...

And Sam's face lit up brighter than the rising sun as I set my book aside and took his hand.

  


~*~

  


The scent of sulfur fills the air as bitter, acrid smoke swirls and eddies around us. My lungs spasm, craving an uncontaminated breath, and tears flow down my dirt-encrusted cheeks. 

It is over. 

The quest is done. 

And here, adrift on a steadily shrinking slab of rock in a molten wasteland, is where I shall die. Where _we_ shall die. For Sam is with me. My faithful, beloved Sam...

And he is weeping.

Of all the hurts I have known in my life, to see my Sam like this is the one I cannot bear. Carefully, I drag myself close enough to him that I can sling an arm around his shoulders to offer what poor comfort I might.

“I can see the Shire... the Brandywine River, Bag End, Gandalf's fireworks... the lights in the Party Tree...” I say, my voice so hoarse and low that at first I am not sure that he has heard me speak, until I hear his soft, hesitant reply.

“Rosie Cotton dancing... she had ribbons in her hair...”

“Yes,” I murmur. “They were blue.”

“Blue as your eyes...” Sam chokes on a laugh that is closer to a sob, and I know my face has betrayed my surprise at this unguarded comment. “Blue as the bruise you sported after I talked you into a football match,” he continues after a long silence.

“The game we lost.”

“That didn't matter.” Sam's hand ghosts up to rest against my cheek. “I let you get hurt that day. That's what haunts me.” His hand falls heavily to his side. “As I have failed you today.”

I am so stunned by this ridiculous statement that I almost allow Sam to draw away, but I quickly tighten my hold on him and press my forehead to his.

“No.” I say softly, calmly. “None of that, Sam. Not after all you've done for me. Not after all you've come to mean to me... I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee... here at the end of all things.”

A tilt of my head, and his cracked and bleeding lips are warm against mine... the touch light and gentle, yet quite the most incredible sensation that I have ever known. He tastes of home...

I have no regrets. Not if the paths we chose led us to this moment. 

It was a game well played.


End file.
